With near perfect weather conditions greeting competitors for the 101st running of the Broadmoor Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, Robin Shute continued his run of domination at the “Race to the Clouds.” The British driver claimed his fourth overall “King of the Mountain” title in five years with his venerable Unlimited class 2018 Wolf TSC-FS powered by a 2.1-liter Honda turbo engine, setting a time of 8m40.080s for the 12.42-mile, 156-turn paved road to the 14,115ft summit of Pikes Peak. That was a lot faster than his winning time of 10m09.525s with the same car in last year’s race, when slick conditions and poor visibility slowed speeds. But it didn’t impress the meticulous Shute, who felt he hadn’t set the car up correctly for the conditions to make the most of improvements made to the car for this year.
“Terrible!” Shute declared wryly after his run. “Nah, it’s OK — it’s always great to get to the top of the mountain. Conditions were just different today; the car just wasn’t dialed like I needed it to. But I held on and wrestled — it was a wild ride.”
Watch the full interview with Shute and an onboard view of his run below:
Shute’s nearest pursuer was Romain Dumas. The Swiss sports car racing and hill climb veteran, who still holds the all-time PPIHC record of 7m57.148s set in 2018 with the all-electric Volkswagen I.D. R Pikes Peak, set the second-fastest overall time and won the Pikes Peak Open class with a 8m47.682s aboard his new all-electric Ford Performance SuperVan 4, with a powertrain consisting of four electric motors that together deliver 1,972 hp. Frenchman Raphael Astier finished second in Pikes Peak Open and third overall with a 2018 Alpine A110 GT4 Evo at 9m17.412s.
David Donohue won the Time Attack 1 class in his iconic Brumos No. 59 2019 Porsche GT2 RS Clubsport with a 9m18.053s that ranked fourth-fastest overall. He edged seven-time Pikes Peak class champ Jeff Zwart, who took his 2019 Porsche 935/19 to a time of 9m46.131s that ranked ninth overall.
Codie Vahsholtz decisively broke his father Clint’s Open Wheel record set in 2020 of 9m35.490s with a 9m19.192s to win the class — and he did it in the same 2013 Ford Open Vahsholtz Custom his dad used to set that record.
Tanner Foust led the Exhibition class with a 9m37.326s that ranked seventh overall, while mountain rookie Hayden Bradley topped the Porsche Pikes Peak Trophy By Yokohama class for Porsche Cayman Clubsport entries with a run of 10m48.387s.
The final runner, 15 1/2 hours after the race began, was Lia Block making an untimed run in tribute to her late father Ken Block driving “Hoonipigasus,” a purpose-built, twin-turbo, 1,400hp Porsche built for the legendary rally racer to drive at Pikes Peak before his tragic death this past January.